Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Delayed to 2018

Koji Igarashi’s spiritual successor to Castelvania: Symphony of the Night, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, has received a hefty delay to its original 2017 launch window.

The project, which was successfully crowdfunded via Kickstarter last year, is now expected to release for PS4, Xbox One, PS Vita, PC and Wii U sometime in the first half of 2018.

The news was revealed via an update on the game’s Kickstarter page, explaining the delay as necessary “to ensure the game meets [Igarashi’s] quality standards.”

Igarashi himself, the legendary designer and producer known for his work at Konami on the Castlevania series, also released a statement, which you can watch in the video below.

“The last thing I want to do is keep our backers waiting,” states Igarashi in the update, “but after receiving such incredible support, I feel responsible for delivering the best product I possibly can.”

Deep Silver is still set to publish the game, which has over 64,000 backers on Kickstarter, equating to nearly six million dollars worth of crowdfunding.

In July of this year, a demo was made available to backers who had pledged over $60.